Traditional Wisdom... LO8982

Eric Bohlman (ebohlman@netcom.com)
Thu, 8 Aug 1996 20:11:37 -0700 (PDT)

Replying to LO8958 --

On 8 Aug 1996, Roxanne S. Abbas wrote:

> Robert says:
>
> "I agree to some extent, but the interesting thing about systems thinking
> is that we must also apply it to management. So by the same logic, there
> is also no such thing as bad managers, only managers that are working in
> bad systems, or who are, themselves asked to do the wrong things."
>
> If I correctly recall, Deming said that managers are accountable for the
> bad systems. So bad systems would implicate managers.

Deming certainly said that managers are *reponsible* for workplace
systems; they're the only people in a position to change them, after all.
But when describing how managers created dysfunctional systems, he always
remarked "how could they have known?" He never argued that dysfunctional
systems were created by bad people, only that they were created by
basically good people who didn't know what they were doing ("a business
can go to ruin from everybody doing their best").

One of Deming's biggest points was that placing blame doesn't work;
solving problems does.

Eric Bohlman (ebohlman@netcom.com)

-- 

Eric Bohlman <ebohlman@netcom.com>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>